


Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile

by Lexigent



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 17:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16499312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: Horatio, a long time afterwards.Content notes: sleep paralysis, horror themes, canonical character death, non-canonical character death.





	Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marcelo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcelo/gifts).



Horatio should have known better.

There was a darkness at work inside Hamlet. It had always been there, even before the thing with his father happened; even before Ophelia; even before Wittenberg; even before Horatio ever knew him. He'd never got to the root of it, of course. No one ever could, with a darkness such as that one. All that anyone could do, all that Horatio could do, was damage control. He had tried, he had given it his best, and he had failed.

***  
There's a Word file on his computer that he fails not to think about. It's not right, not now, not for a long time, and he knows he doesn't have the time to work on it but he does it anyway. At least it has a chance at being right. He can keep editing it until it is, unlike the statements he gave when the grief was fresh and they all stuck microphones in his face; all wanting a piece of the sorrow without having to carry any of it.

***

 

He awakes in the dead of night, shivers under a cold hand's touch, feels pressure on his chest. A parody of a gesture that once felt sweet, yet made him ache deep in his soul, because something was always twisted about them, even then, even when Hamlet was laughing, in his cups, and Horatio, for once, relaxed enough to let himself be touched by this stupid upper-class boy that he never thought he'd be able to entertain for more than five seconds.

He feels a mouth near his ear and heard sounds that he can't make sense of. The cold becomes more intense. He feels an almost physically painful sense of hurt - loss - abandonment - need - pulling at him. They don't feel like his own emotions but they are overwhelming all the same. Hamlet was always a bit much, but usually bearable.

He inhales against the resistance of the hand on his chest. It is difficult.

 

***  
There's a box of trinkets that he keeps in his desk and never looks at. It's silly stuff, sentimental even, not something he would ever have permitted himself before, not something he has done for any loss he's suffered after Hamlet, and there have been many of those. But that first one still cuts deepest, even after all this time.

***

 

The hand on his chest relents, but only a fraction. He exhales, expecting his ribcage to burst at any moment.

He feels fingers in his hair, an icy mouth against his. He opens to it, lets out a sound when he feels the touch of a hand against his stomach, slowly sliding lower; icy, deathly cold, but irresistible.

He closes his eyes, leans into the pain and pleasure of it. There is nothing to do but yield to it. He's holding onto his sanity by a thread and the thought of losing it thrills and terrifies him all the same.

 

***  
There's a candle on Hamlet's grave that he put there and refreshed every six weeks; a ritual that helped at first but became a burden afterwards. He realised it wasn't helping, yet found himself unable to stop.

***

  
"You haven't told them," the voice whispers into his ear, steely and unrelenting, "you never told them the truth about yourself, about us, about how you were responsible for all this."  
Horatio lies still and lets him talk, no fight, no resistance. He knows he should have watched Ophelia better; knows he should have argued more with Hamlet; knows he should have stopped the duel somehow; knows he should have declared himself, _the readiness is all_ , his friend had said, and if there was ever a moment for a man to stop the fall of a sparrow, this was it, but he let it pass and the sparrow died and now he has nothing but ghosts in his dreams and regrets around every corner.

All he ever wanted was to serve Hamlet, and serve him well, and in that desire, he lost sight of the one thing that would have made a difference.

"I'm sorry I failed you," he says, and the cold hands press into him again, on his chest, around his throat. He cries out, then stills, fights for breath, and just as he thinks this is the end, Hamlet has finally come and claimed him, they release him and he gulps in air like one who's drowning.

He turns on his side and weeps, silently but intensely; tears soaking into his bedsheets. He can't make it stop, all he can do is surrender to it, let all of it pass through his body - the disappointment of not being dead, the stubborn joy of being alive, the fear of future torment, the sheer utter weariness of one who has carried far more than his fair share of weight for far too long.

 

***  
He writes when he gets up. He can hardly control his fingers on the keyboard because his mind is racing much faster than he can move them at his age. He barely stops for three days. When he has finished, he sends it to an address he hasn't sent anything to in fifteen years. He sighs at the reply.

***

 

"You did good," the voice says, the cold fingers now much more bearable against Horatio's skin.  
"I should have done this years ago," Horatio says and takes a deep breath to prepare himself for whatever this night may bring.

 

***  
They bury him three days later, after his neighbour alarms the police.

***

 

Elsinore Estate has done well out of the publication of Horatio's story. Fortinbras III doesn't understand much about biography, or literature, or indeed read very much at all, but he does understand money, and he does understand what it can buy him. He'll sign off on the purchase of another palace in the morning.

His sudden and unexpected death, however, means that the money ends up going to the Ophelia Trust.

Horatio, still getting used to not having human emotions behind the veil, tries to remember what triumph and happiness feel like.


End file.
